Jobless Workers Tell Of Personal Hardships

Unemployed Workers Tell Of Hardships

Ronald J. Montagna had never had a hard time finding work in his life -- until he was laid off from his management job at Lincoln National Corp. in October 1989.

That set the 42-year-old Simsbury resident on a job-hunting course that lead to nothing but dead ends, depression, financial crises and personal hardships for him and his young family.

"As I became more and more demoralized, I pictured us homeless and penniless, and that wasn't very far from reality," Montagna recalled Monday at a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing in New Britain on joblessness.

After more than 18 months, 1,500 resumes and countless rejections, Montagna recently decided it was time to change fields -- now he is selling insurance on commission instead of working as an insurance auditor -- but the experience of joblessness took its toll on him, his wife, Marianne, and their two sons.

Witnesses at the hearing called by U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said the unemployment rate -- 5.9 percent in Connecticut in June -- just doesn't tell the full story when it comes to the pain caused by this recession.

Thousands whose jobs have been eliminated since early 1989 are going through similar ordeals, said Sue Troupe Tolhurst, a Waterbury woman who lost her job last year. Tolhurst is working to set up a statewide network of support groups for the jobless to offer encouragement and help in looking for new work.

"Unemployment and a devastated economy are exacting a terrible price -- one that is far greater and more painful than that reflected in the statistics," Tolhurst told Dodd and U.S. Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn.

"I have been unemployed before," Tolhurst said, "but I have never seen anything like I have witnessed this year. People who have jobs are terrified they could become unemployed. Those without jobs are terrified their unemployment payments will run out before they can find work, and those who are just entering the work force are despairing over finding that vital first job."

Others testified about the pain suffered by those not

technically unemployed, such as small-business owners forced into bankruptcy, people working part time instead of full time, people who have taken jobs at much lower pay and requiring lesser skills than their previous work and those who have just given up hope.

John E. Saunders, III, deputy state labor commissioner for employment and training, said this recession is different from earlier ones in the numbers of white-collar workers affected and jobs being eliminated.

"When workers lose jobs today, many of those jobs are gone forever," Saunders said. And the state has seen job losses in businesses that had been considered rock solid -- insurance, banking and defense. This year, the state predicts that up to 42 percent of people receiving unemployment insurance, will exhaust all 26 weeks of payments, the highest exhaustion level since 1940.

And despite reports of an upturn in the national economy, Connecticut employers continue to cut back. Speakers at the hearing called for more government help to the jobless, especially in extended unemployment payments, more comprehensive job retraining and a job referral service better able to handle the needs of white-collar workers.

Dodd said the testimony would help convince lawmakers in Washington of the need for steps to counter the effects of joblessness despite national signs of recovery.

Montagna, who worked out of the Avon office of Lincoln National's Security-Connecticut subsidiary, told the panel that his comfortable suburban lifestyle started to unravel when he lost his job. None of the many job referrals panned out. The bank refused to restructure his home mortgage and he couldn't unload the condominium or either of the family's cars.

"We scoured the house for tag sale merchandise and spent more for the newspaper ad that we netted on the sale," he said. An attempt at finding a job in Florida proved fruitless, so the family returned to Connecticut.

Eric Anderson, a former executive with Data General, spoke of similar frustrations. The Branford resident had been in the computer business for more than 25 years before he lost his job last August when his division was shut down.

"My unemployment benefits ran out a long time ago," Anderson said, adding he was unsure how he would pay his next electricity bill.

Anderson said he frequently hears from prospective employers that he is overqualified.

"Does overqualified mean too old?" asked Anderson, who is 50.

Tolhurst said she has heard the same refrain in her support group. Older workers feel they face a tougher fight because employers would rather bring in younger workers who they feel would demand smaller salaries. "The situation has gotten so out of hand that people are omitting certain things from their resumes to avoid prejudgments," she said. Among the omissions are age, year of college graduation or previous salary.